D.A. should not defend flawed case

Updated 11:42 pm, Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Nueces County District Attorney Mark Skurka should do the right thing and acknowledge that the sensational prosecution of Hannah Overton for the death of her son was a miscarriage of justice.

Instead, his office is wrongly fighting the exoneration of a woman who is innocent of any crime and is likely the victim of prosecutorial misconduct.

In 2007, a jury in Corpus Christi found Overton guilty of capital murder for forcing her 4-year-old foster son to ingest a lethal amount of salt.

She is serving a mandatory sentence of life without parole.

But as San Antonio Express-News staff writer John MacCormack has reported, the case against Overton — which was prosecuted by one of Skurka's predecessors — was deeply flawed.

His immediate predecessor, Anna Jimenez, who was a member of the Overton prosecution team, acknowledges that the conviction was “an injustice.”

In February, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a state district court in Corpus Christi to review the case. The proceedings have thus far confirmed a terrible injustice to Overton.

Prosecutors withheld expert testimony that the boy's death was accidental and possibly the result of a genetic disorder that causes an uncontrollable appetite.

They also failed to turn over exculpatory evidence, including a sample of stomach contents that showed a low level of salt — information that strongly undercuts the prosecution's contention that Overton forced the boy to swallow a deadly dose of salt.

Skurka is not responsible for actions taken before he assumed office. He is responsible now for defending the indefensible. His interest should be in seeing justice done in the Overton case, not in upholding the faulty conviction of an innocent woman.